Dorice Donegan Moore Charged in Lottery Winner Abraham Shakespeare's Murder
Photo: Dorice Donegan Moore's mug shot by Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Moore was charged Tuesday with trying to conceal Shakespeare's murder. So far no one has been charged with his death.
Shakespeare was last seen in April - more than two years after he took a lump-sum payment of $17 million on a $30 million jackpot.
Photo: Abraham Shakespeare, center, displays an oversized check after winning the lottery in 2006.
Detectives said Shakespeare was killed on April 6 or 7, 2009, at a home in a rural town east of Tampa. He was buried, officials said, at the home next door, which according to property records, was purchased by Moore and listed in the name of her boyfriend.
Moore has denied hurting Shakespeare, but police say she tried to find someone she could pay to take the rap for his killing, offering up to $50,000.
In an affidavit, investigators say she also told an unnamed witness - it's not clear if it was the same person - to dig up the body and move it to another location.
Photo: Dorice Donegan Moore's Facebook picture.
They claim she showed the person where the body was buried on Jan. 25 and provided a pickup truck to transport it, along with bleach and plastic sheeting. Police began digging up her backyard the next day.
Moore, 37, befriended Shakespeare after he claimed the winning ticket in 2006. She claimed she wanted to write a book about him, but officials said she actually scammed him out of money. Property records show she bought a $1 million home from Shakespeare for $655,000 and she acknowledged moving $2 million of his money into her bank account.
She was also taking "steps to make it appear that the victim was still alive," the affidavit said.
Detectives said Moore wrote a letter to Shakespeare's mother, claiming to be him - even though the lottery winner was barely literate. Detectives also said Moore had an unnamed witness make a cell phone call to Shakespeare's mother, pretending to be him.
But Moore was insistent that she didn't hurt Shakespeare. "I would never take another human's life. No amount of money in the world is worth that," she said shortly before her arrest. She claimed she poured the cement where his body was found to park a boat.
Moore was charged as an accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.
As for Shakespeare, his brother Robert Brown told the Associated Press that Shakespeare often wished he had never bought the winning ticket. "'I'd have been better off broke,'" Brown said he told him.
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